Well, howdy there internet people, it’s me again. Visited my local GP/oncologist this morning. He showed us images of the growth that is happening alongside the left side of my spine. I think it’s trying to replace the kidney that I lost in 2002. It’s big enough. Just kidding, of course. The growth is pretty impressive, let me tell you. I’m not feeling any ill effects from it at the moment because it hasn’t gotten into my spine. If it had, I’d be paralyzed. It is large, however, and nothing to sneeze at. Probably not immediately life threatening, but I have enough other issues to think about that are threatening my life, not the least of which is my age.

I’m feeling very strange at the moment. I am still sentient from what I can tell, although I’ll leave it up to others to confirm. Sentient or not, I’m close to death. From what I’ve read about Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) people are often sentient until the last minute. Maybe I can shoot for that although being zonked out on morphine has its appeal too as I slip off into death.

My local GP/oncologist is in contact with the oncologist in Victoria at the BC Cancer Agency who looks after my file, and he (Macpherson in Victoria) doesn’t support the idea of my getting another shot with another chemo protocol. I’m done as far as he’s concerned. He expects more chemo would just be futile and would not enhance my life chances a whole lot. I will know the results of my latest bloodwork late next week and that will help me decide as to whether or not I push for a second opinion and for another chemo protocol. Whatever happens, as Carolyn points out, even a new protocol would likely give me just another nine months of life at best, so what’s the point?

It may be time for me to accept the increasingly obvious fact that my life is done. Well, I may have a few more months to live, but not years, certainly not years. I don’t know, but going off chemo may give me a few months of relief from side effects. That would be nice. Already, I’m starting to feel my lips again. Lips I couldn’t feel, constant sore eyes, and plugged ears were Daratumumab/lenalidomide side effects. Since I stopped infusing Dara things have settled down. Carfilzomib has its own issues, but so far I have been able to deal with them. Whatever happens, I could still take hydromorphone for pain, and maybe even increase my dosage. I mean, what the hell do I need a brain for anyway? [Well, maybe for writing a few more blog posts!]

Then, when the time comes, I just give the Hospice Society a call. I may opt to die in a Hospice bed, but I may decide to die at home, although I don’t thing I want to put my family through that. Caregiving is tough enough as it is. It’s true that watching me die might be okay with them. I don’t know. We’ll have to discuss it. MAID is definitely an option. We have discussed that.

I, along with many of my siblings and relatives, sat around and watched my mother die in her bed at The Dufferin in 2018, the care home in Coquitlam she lived in for many years with my father before he died in 2007. She had dementia quite badly for the last few years of her life, and as she lay there dying she had no idea about anything, which is consistent with the last 25 years of her life. The nurses just kept pumping morphine into her veins. That kept her quiet. I suppose I could tolerate an ending like that, but I don’t have dementia. I would probably be conscious and sentient until the end. That’s fine as long as I got the morphine too. I’m not a big fan of pain.

I told my local GP/oncologist that I may go for a second opinion. I may. I may not. Probably not. It all depends on how I come to accept my end times. I find it hard to even think about death and dying. It doesn’t come easily to my imagination. Oh, every once in a while I lay in bed just before falling asleep in the evening and I think “What the heck? When it’s done, it will be done. No regrets.” Then, I get scared. I imagine myself in a cardboard box on my way to the crematorium on the hill. That’s fine, but I need to know that I’m really dead before that happens. I’m not keen on feeling fire on my skin. Of course, I’m being silly. I will definitely be dead by then. My box is on a conveyor belt. There are a couple of bodies ahead of me laid out in fancy coffins. They’ll burn real good! I’ll have to wait to get turned into ash powder. But it will happen. Later, someone will give my family a package of ashes that will have been me. I don’t care what they do with it, but I hear that the family has a cemetery plot in Vancouver. My wonderful niece arranged that. So, that’s it.

Goodbye life.

PS: I’ll write my obituary sometime. Not just yet. You’ll have to wait for it a while longer.